Welcome to some political/economic thoughts

Once again, Canada’s Foreign Minister John Baird advances the cause of U.S./Western hegemony, using the same old, same old arguments utilized by western governments and their media ‘presstitutes’ (as labelled by Paul Craig Roberts).

Gaza

Gaza is once again under attack by Israel, as it has been many times over the past seventy years from the 1947 nakba onward. Its current population of about 1.5 million is contained within a concentration zone of about 360 km2 . The densely populated area is totally controlled by Israel with a highly militarized fence on the land perimeter, and an ongoing naval blockade of the Mediterranean shore. The area’s citizens are mainly refugees from a series of wars, in particular the nakba and the 1967 war, and live in highly constrained conditions.

Those conditions include severe inhumane limitations on the materials and goods that can be imported into the territory, and on those products that could be exported (mainly farm produce). A semi-official policy of the Israeli government is to keep the population living on starvation ration, as indicated by Dov Weisglass, advisor to Ehud Olmert, “The idea,” he said, “is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.” In addition, energy sources are limited, fuel supplies are limited, electricity is restricted, health and medical supplies are restricted.

Egypt does not help with this. Egypt has controlled the Rafah crossing for the benefit of Israel, not for the trade that could occur between the two countries. Under Mubarak, Egypt allowed a certain degree of exchange, mainly by allowing the Palestinians to tunnel under the border fence. With the election of the Muslim Brotherhood, hope increased for more openness, but that never occurred. When al-Sisi stage his coup d’etat and took control, the border was closed even further.

To think that Egypt could act as “an honest broker” as per Mr. Baird’s comments on his teleconference this morning is absurd (CBC News Network, Monday, July 21) . It is also absurd to support the supposed ceasefire arrangement between Israel and Hamas as Egypt did not talk to Hamas but came up with their own solutions. As a puppet client of both the U.S. and Israel, and hostile to Islam, Egypt has no credibility as any kind of negotiator for the region, as per Baird’s thinking that “Egypt is uniquely qualified to broker a ceasefire.” What qualifications might those be Mr. Baird?

Further, Mr. Baird indicates that “only one group is entirely responsible for this,” being Hamas. From what is indicated above, this is obviously not the case. From its inception, and recognized by early Zionists as well as relatively modern Zionists, including Ben Gurion, the big problem with Eretz Israel was and is the demographic problem. It has been a tenet of Zionist belief and action that the ethnic cleansing of Eretz Israel has been, is, and will be an ongoing action that operates at various speeds according to domestic and global situations. The current distraction in Ukraine is an opportune time to load the guns and missiles and attack the Palestinians once again, if not for immediate expulsion, then at least for the long term goal of ridding Israel of any Arab/Palestinian presence.

Which leaves an interesting tie-in to the Ukraine, as Baird indicated that for the current situation with the MH17, the “Kremlin may not have pulled the trigger but it loaded the gun.” That is a highly contorted perception of what may have occurred, but bringing the idea back to Israel, “it is the U.S. and its allies that loaded the gun, but Israel pulled the trigger.” Effectively, Canada and the U.S. and other European allies within NATO are complicit in the Israeli war crimes against civilians and children, not to mention the illegality of the whole Gaza concentration imprisonment in the first case.

Baird and the presstitutes paint the picture of two equal combatants fighting it out for control of the Gaza Strip. In reality, it is an asymmetric battle, with Israel having the overwhelming preponderance of force with their own and U.S./NATO supplied materials and their ever present controls of the total Gaza zone on land, sea, and in the air. Israel is a colonial-settler society, highly militarized, and very consistent with their fear of the demographic threat of the Palestinian population. Israel has created a zone in which all persons are enemy combatants and thus are able to be killed regardless of whether they are women or children or non-combatants. It simplifies their thinking and allows them to retain the lie of their false moral superiority.

Rather than, as in Baird’s perception, “Hamas can end this right now” by not fighting the Israelis with ineffective rockets and small arms, the corollary is also true: Israel can end this right now. Israel, at a minimum, should withdraw from Gaza and then proceed with actions that will increase commercial activity, and that will allow full medical, educational, and infrasture support for the area.

Ukraine

So let’s start at the beginning. According to Baird, the beginning was when Russia took over Crimea. That was certainly the beginning for the western media blitz supporting the newly installed nazi based coup d’etat in Kiev. However, the current ‘beginning’ was when Victoria “F**K the EU” Nuland, assistant secretary of state for the US, essentially appointed Artseniy Yatsenyuk as Prime Minister of the Ukraine. The real beginnings go back much further in history, with many different starting points.

But let’s give World War II as the dividing line between modern history and other history (without calling it ‘ancient’ history’) for it is at that time that the current mess was set up. After WW II, Kruschev, in a misguided political move, gave Crimea and the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk to Ukraine for vague reasons of political solidarity. The population, language, culture, religion, and politics have, before and after, have retained strong ties with Russia, and are a majority of the population demographics.

Crimea had a legally established Russian military presence well before any of the current problems originated. They did not invade Crimea and only assumed control of the province after a vote that in most modern terms, and especially vis a vis Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt, would be considered highly democratic. Putin has wisely stayed out of Eastern Ukraine, de-escalating the situation by withdrawing his forces from the border region. He is intelligent enough to know that any action such as the MH17 kill would be utterly foolish in geopolitical terms. That is where the western 'presstitute' media swallows U.S. ejaculations over the issue without critical thought.

Baird’s sources of information are “social media site” - well known for out of context or historically false postings - that reported “two other planes taken down.” Well in reality there have been more than two other planes taken down, but, yes, it is a war zone, and the other planes were Kiev based Ukranian planes flying at low altitude. It is always surprising that the U.S. seems to know immediately what happened, who did it, how they did it, and even why they did it. All part of the media blitz that western media mostly ingests and regurgitates without question.
Sanctions are part of Baird’s discussion.

His reference was that “sanctions worked in Burma and South Africa” which is at best partially true. Sanctions certainly drew awareness to the conditions in these countries, but it was ultimately a political decision based on the need to look good for domestic purposes, as U.S. corporations and government liaisons continued up to the end of apartheid. For that matter in South Africa, apartheid may not have ended had the resistance not given way to the demands of the white powers to give up their ideals to nationalize the corporations and distribute the wealth to its citizens, but rather to let the corporations continue to harvest the wealth for the benefit of the whites and the few black oligarchs that were created in order to demonstrate the new ‘equality’.

Okay, a bit of a diversion, but back to the Ukraine and the effect of sanctions on Russia. Mostly, if reading the financial blogs on line gives real indicators, as they tend to do, getting their information from mainstream sources, the effects have been negligible on Russia. Sort of - it has pushed Russia further into the BRICS alliance and the general move away from US$ hegemony, probably the worst possible outcome for the U.S. short of nuclear war.

Another effect is the recently faltering German economy. Now that may not be a direct effect and could be largely apportioned to the general misery of the EU economy in the first place, but Germany has large ties with Russia and China, and if they accept U.S. demanded sanctions, they will be hurting their own economies as much if not more relatively than that of Russia.

Another unanounced effect has been the silent support provided by China for the Russian position. China is also under U.S. threat, and has already pronounced that the era of US$ hegemony must end. Sanction against Russia only strengthen this position as China can see what is in store for itself. Not only does China silently support Russia, the other BRICS and many other formerly third world nations, developing nations, do as well, as witnessed by the very recdent establishment of a new ‘world’ bank supported by the BRICS in order to avoid using the dollar. The majority of the world’s population is quite happy to see U.S. power diminished in ineffectiveness and possibly future hopelessness as the US$ fades into zero value, and U.S. political machinations are rebuffed by the BRICS.

That may seem like a diversion, but it is central to what is happening in the Ukraine. Little is known about the crash of MH17 in spite of Baird’s citing of ‘knowledge’ about it, which he really does nto cite, and does not provide sources other than his foolish ‘social media’ comment. Social media may be widespread, but it is not well informed, and can only provide superficial out of context information, or as is usual with U.S. interests, false information.

For Baird to ‘man up’ as has been requested of Putin, Baird should lead a contingent of the Canadian military to the Ukraine in order to fight alongside the Kiev forces in Eastern Ukraine. NATO need not be involved, this would be a purely bi-partisan act of assistance. A large portion of those Kiev forces are mercenaries hired by the oligarchs in Ukraine determined to preserve their power and control within the region, good company for Canadian forces under Baird.

Essentially Canada’s position is one of a reliable sycophantic minion attempting to front run the U.S. in its taking a tough stand against Russia. It is an idiotic position, a retard to the era of Cold War thinking in an era of internationalized economics. The end result may well be a new world order where the economic power is fully in the hands of the BRICS and ‘fortress’ North America is an isolated island with increasing disparities between rich and poor, and omnipresent surveillance and control of the population. Sounds dramatic, but that is currently what is slowly taking place.